


It Hungers (You Must Appease It)

by Kgdragoon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21711517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kgdragoon/pseuds/Kgdragoon
Summary: You do not see it, but you know it is there.You know that it hungers, and that you must appease it.
Kudos: 2





	It Hungers (You Must Appease It)

It Hungers (You Must Appease It)

You wake to the bleating of an alarm. It jars you from your well-deserved, if not entirely restful sleep, and you hurry to find the icon on your phone that will silence it. You never sleep all that well in a strange place, no matter how nice the hotel. And it is a nice hotel, not particularly fancy or anything, but well kept and fairly large, with lush carpets, decent food, and friendly staff. You decide that you’ll be sad to see the back of it.

After throwing the last of your things into your suitcase and taking a practically decadent shower, you head downstairs for breakfast, only to find that, strangely, they aren’t serving food. There are several groups of people sitting in the dining area, whispering furiously to one another, but you don’t see anyone that you recognize, and you don’t really feel like joining an angry mob today.

Before you can decide on what to do next, you catch a glimpse of a familiar baby blue shirt and name tag, and you wander over to the poor, freckled girl who is keenly aware that she stands between a bourgeoning mob and their morning breakfast.

“Um, hey,” you call to the girl, softly, so you don’t startle her or draw everyone’s attention, and offer her a friendly wave.

“Yes?” she asks, biting her lip and casting nervous glances around her. “Can I help you?”

“Ah… I was just wondering about the food…?”

“Oh yeah. That. Sorry.”

“So… that’s a no?”

“Right.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why isn’t there any food? What’s up? Is it just late, or are we going to have to fend for ourselves?”

“You’re going to have to get your own food today. Sorry,” she adds the last bit more like an afterthought and goes back to furtively watching the slowly growing crowd.

You open your mouth to question her further, but decide at the last moment that it probably isn’t worth it. You back away from the still nervous employee and turn towards the kitchen door. It’s the kind of door that swings and has a small, round window just above the “Employees Only” sign. From behind the door, you hear raised voices, though you can’t make out the words, and when you look through the heavily smudged window you can make out two staff members in red aprons gesturing wildly and apparently in the middle of an argument. You slowly back away from the door and head to the lobby, where a middle aged couple seems to be berating the receptionist. You feel bad for the young Asian woman, whose face appears fixed in an immutable, polite smile, but you don’t think there’s much you can do to help.

You head towards the door instead, and step outside into Absolute. Pandemonium. In the space of five seconds you witness no fewer than two drivers being cut off, three drivers aggressively honking their horns, and one near accident. You shake your head in disgust. Some people do not belong behind a wheel. You look up and down the road, trying to figure out what’s got everyone’s panties in a wad, and see a massive traffic jam on the sole road into/out of town. The town isn’t so large that you can’t see the edge of it, and the road’s on a massive, steep hill anyways.

You curse softly and pull out your phone. No service, of course. You’re not sure what else you expected from the small, forested, out of the way, not-yet-quite-a-city, but for some reason you expected better than this. You are a frequently disappointed person. And looking at the traffic jam caused by too-steep roads (and probably idiot drivers), you are also probably ( ~~definitely~~ ) going to miss your flight (the airport’s an hour’s drive away, in a proper city). You curse the overcast skies and figure that it’s also, probably, going to rain. It seems like a poetic addition to a spectacularly un-poetic day.

You turn to head back inside when something slams into you full force, sending you sprawling on the pavement. You look up and glare at the man that is even now picking himself up and starting to run off again, without a single word of apology!

“Hey, what the fuck?!” you shout after him. “What’s your problem?”

He pauses for a moment, looks back at you, wide-eyed and maybe not entirely sane. “You have to run! It’s coming! We don’t know what it wants!!” and then he takes off again without a single word of explanation.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you mutter, looking down at the long gash on your forearm. You tentatively poke at the scrape, and though it doesn’t look too bad, it still burns badly enough that you hiss through your tightly clenched teeth.

Worse than the cut is the new sinking feeling in your gut. Sure, you’ve dealt with plenty of people standing on street corners and shouting about the end of the world, and others, far more unsettling, muttering to themselves, telling you earnestly about the government experiments and the aliens, and scratching at invisible insects crawling on their skin. But no matter what you’ve tried, you’ve never really been able to fully get rid of the paranoia, clawing at the back of your mind and begging you to become some sort of forest hermit because _nothing is safe_. So at least you’re practiced in ignoring it. And so instead of running like a crazy person, away from some invisible threat, you turn around and head back inside the hotel.

The moment the doors close behind you, you let out a breath at the feeling of _warm,_ and _welcome,_ and _**safe**._ The paranoia fades to the background and you walk to the receptionist, who sees you and nods her head politely, that same hospitality smile on her face, still welcoming just the same.

“It’s crazy out there,” you say, motioning towards the door.

Her eyes catch on your injured arm and widen.

“Do you know what’s going on?” you ask.

“No, I’m sorry,” she replies, seeming to be genuinely remorseful; her mouth tilting downward into a practiced expression of appeasement. “We have been receiving reports of some sort of accident that closed the road, but we don’t know anything beyond that. I’m sure they’ll have the road cleared in a few hours at most.”

You nod, and grimace. “I’m gonna miss my flight.”

The receptionist gives you her practiced ‘sympathetic face’, and clicks away at her computer. “Your room is still available, if you wish to extend your stay?”

You nod again, still grimacing. You grab your elbow to keep your germy hands away from the scrape that is now really starting to bother you, stinging like mad and begging for acknowledgement.

“You don’t happen to have something for this, do you?” you ask the woman, motioning to your arm.

She looks at the cut, and then looks away for a moment. When she looks back at you, it’s with the same sorry smile from before. “I’m afraid we only have some hand sanitizer,” she says.

“I’ll take it,” you reply, grabbing the large bottle she offers from its spot on her desk, and after a moment’s deliberation you decide to take it with you to the nearest restroom.

You carefully wash off your arm, patting it dry with paper towels before squirting some of the hand sanitizer onto a fresh wad of towels and gently patting it onto your arm. You hiss when it hits a particularly deep bit, but grit your teeth and manage to finish cleaning the cut without too much fuss. Then you realize that a.) the cut is still sluggishly bleeding and b.) you don’t have any bandages for it. You tear more paper towels into strips, wondering how many trees you’ve probably just killed with your excessive paper towel usage, and then do your level best to bind your arm and not make it look like the product of a shitty Halloween party (you’re halfway successful).

You return the bottle of hand sanitizer with a smile and a ‘thank you’ and head back outside, determined to find the nearest convenience store (or grocery store, whatever comes first- you’re not picky).

After a solid ten blocks of walking under the crappy light of an overcast sky, without coming across a single person, you feel more than a little relieved when you finally reach the grocery store. It’s a small thing, mostly glass, and packed to the brim with people. Apparently everyone who’s not trying to leave the town is here at this grocery store. Which just about sums up your day.

You enter the store with a sigh, squeezing in-between a group of elderly people debating a type of plant food and thoroughly blocking the entrance. And wow, this store is small - you can literally see the opposite side of it, and there isn’t a single shelf above head height to block your view.

The first thing you do is head over to the pharmacy and personal hygiene area, and pick up a first aid kit along with a small tube of disinfectant. Then you head over to their deli. The selections are all pretty sad looking, but you manage to find a roast beef sandwich that seems appetizing enough. You push your way back through the crowds and dutifully stand in line for one of the checkout counters. The cashier scans items quickly and tosses them haphazardly into bags, trying to hurry the line along. Despite his best efforts, it only seems to grow.

Finally (finally!) the lines inches forward until it is your turn. You dutifully hand over your plastic wrapped roast beef sandwich, then your brand new mini first aid kit and disinfectant, he scans them, and you pay by rote, quickly leaving the line so that you’re not in the way.

You slip the first aid kit and disinfectant into a pocket along with your wallet, and head to the front of the store, determined to get back to your hotel and out of the maddened rush of people. But the sandwich sits heavy in your hand, calling your name with every displeased gurgle of your stomach, and you finally give in just before you reach the entrance. You unwrap the sandwich as you walk and are just about to take a bite when a loud *thump* startles you. You stop in your tracks and look up, towards the source of the noise.

*Thump*

There! You see something flung against the windows of the store. You don’t see what it is, but it leaves a dark, wide splatter of red behind. A queasy feeling starts to churn in your stomach just as the first of the screams begins.

Suddenly you are caught in a mad rush, people panicking and running **outside** , towards whatever is making suspiciously person-sized splashes of red on grocery store windows too high up to be caused by normal, person-sized means. Somewhere between an elbow to the stomach and a purse to the face, you drop your roast beef sandwich. More concerning is the ever shrinking distance between you and the doors.

You catch a glimpse of the outside world and it looks **_wrong_** —too dark for mere storm clouds, unnaturally washed out, distorted almost like a heat shimmer but _everywhere_. And the crowd is still stampeding in its direction.

Your mouth goes dry as you estimate the time from your spot to the outside world as only seconds, and you begin to struggle in earnest—pushing through the crowd, jarring, jostling, elbowing. But it’s no use. The crowd is too thick, too afraid, and you’re steadily carried to the doors. You reach the doorway, and in a last-ditch effort, you throw yourself at the wall, scrabbling at the doorframe and holding on for dear life when you find purchase.

The crowd continues past and you’re nearly thrown from the doorway at least once—a bruising shove that slams you into the glass **_hard_** and splits a fingernail in two. But you manage to stay inside the store, if only just.

Eventually the crowd thins enough that you’re no longer crushed against the doorframe. Eventually the crowd thins enough that the blood rushing in your ears fades, and the panicked screams are less overwhelming, and the wails of terror and agony outside are not.

Finally, **_finally_** , everyone realizes that the danger is **outside** and that they should **not go towards it** , and everything. just. stops. For one blessed moment everything is silent and still and the ringing in your head dims as you sit on the ground, gasping for breath, right next to the entrance; blood pooling inside just as the doors close with a mechanical whoosh.

Your gaze is (morbidly) drawn outside, your curiosity pushing you to **see** (see more, see the truth, **see** and **know** what you’re up against). There are no bodies, and yet blood continues to seep through the entryway. Outside looks normal, no warping, no monochrome, though you still maintain that it seems darker than it should. You can see no source for the darkness though – a flicker catches your eye. You look towards the movement, but there is nothing. Another flicker. Still nothing, but you are suddenly, keenly, aware of being watched. The prickling of the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. And you swear you catch a glimmer of something, just out of the corner of your eye…

“Are you crazy!”

The shout startles you so badly that you jump. The feeling of eyes on you evaporates, forgotten like it was never there, and you turn towards the voices that you are _just now_ becoming aware of.

A crowd has gathered in the open space in front of the cash registers, and there seems to be a heated discussion at its center.

“We can’t go outside! You saw what happened to those people!”

 _No, no you did not_.

“We can’t stay in here forever! We don’t even know what’s out there or what It wants!” the man argues.

“Are you fucking kidding me?! It wants to turn is into bloody pulp!” the woman shouts. “Or have you not been paying attention?!”

“For all you know, that _thing_ was trying to communicate with us!” he shouts back.

“By killing people!”

“It could have been an accident! We don’t know anything about it!”

“Other than it kills people!”

“We have to find out what it wants!” he shouts, face turning red before he sucks in a deep breath and finds some measure of calm. “Maybe we can reason with it.”

“There’s no reasoning with a monster,” the woman hisses back, having regained some of her own composure.

“Well then, what do you propose we do?” the man asks snidely.

The woman pauses, pursing her lips for a moment, visibly biting back her own snide remark before considering the question. “We stay in here, take stock of what we have, and figure out how long we can last and how we can keep whatever that thing is, out.”

The man doesn’t have a reply, and the woman presses her advantage.

“Unless, of course, you want to go outside and see if you can negotiate with that thing on your own. Then feel free.”

The man turns towards the door, lips pressed together so firmly that they’ve gone white with a lack of blood. He looks between the woman, to the crowd who watches him back, expectantly, to the door. He stares at the door for a moment, and then blanches, face going as white as his lips. And when he faces the woman again, it’s with a look of defeat. He nods his submission, and she nods her acknowledgement of it, and the matter is settled.

That night you clear the lowermost shelf in the hygiene aisle and realize that you still haven’t eaten. Your stomach complains, loudly, but curled beneath a meager blanket under the flimsy protection of a retail display, with the lights having turned off and no one who knows how or why or how to get them back on (not to mention the thing outside), you can’t muster up the courage to leave your hidey-hole and get food.

You try, though, to ignore the hunger, the fear, the aching of your freshly bandaged arm. But it keeps you up. And as you listen to the snores coming from around you, you really **really** don’t know how anyone can sleep at a time like this.

You try and ignore the hunger, but it _gnaws_. You are more successful at ignoring the fear, which has become more ambiance at this point than pressing need… well, you were more successful until you hear the sound. *click click click* like long, sharp nails walking over wood, or glass, or _tile_. You stop breathing. *click click click*

The sound increases, drawing closer. *click click click* You want to scream, to warn someone. (You want, more than anything, to run far, far away and not stop until you’re somewhere safe). Your mouth opens, but no sound comes out. *click click click* You curl further into your blanket until only your eyes are exposed. *click click click* You close your eyes, unable to see anything in the near pitch black, and unable to bear the tension any longer.

*click click click* *click click click* *click click click*

The sound grows fainter, farther, with every unnatural click, and you finally open your eyes and breathe a soft sigh of relief. There are no screams, no exclamations, no curses, just the continued drone of snoring, which drags on and on until you are certain that the staccato of clicks must have been the product of fear, exhaustion, and a desperate lack of food. In the crash of adrenaline and endlessly circling thoughts, your eyes drift closed…

You wake up to raised voices. You dreamt of something, you’re sure of it, but you cannot recall what…

“What do you mean she’s gone?!”

“What do you mean, what do I mean she’s gone? She’s gone! Just gone!”

“Did she leave in the middle of the night?”

“ **I don’t know, I didn’t see anything** ,” the speaker wails.

You lift yourself from your makeshift bed and walk towards the sound of arguing voices to find the woman from yesterday, now the de facto leader of your group, berating another, much younger woman. The younger woman is crying, but she still manages to glare at the older woman with some stubbornness, and no small amount of anger. She looks familiar, and you vaguely remember seeing her with a brunette about her age, which you presume was her friend.

Then you remember last night.

Your stomach drops, and you know that you have to tell them. You even start to. But then you think better of it. If you go outside, you die. If you stay inside, you die, but slower. Saying that something was inside the store, a fact which even you are not entirely sure of, will only make everyone panic - and you really don’t want a repeat of yesterday. So you close your mouth and head over to the produce section of the store.

The overhead lights are still off, but the electricity is on, and the freezers are still running. Odd. You wonder if there was an electrical short, or if everything is simply automated, or if there’s some sort of safety feature built in to prevent the food from spoiling. You carefully don’t think about the possibility of the thing outside deliberately causing the lights to go out; that really wouldn’t make sense anyway, you reason, or the freezers would’ve gone off too.

You’re drawn to a tub of guacamole, a bag of chips, and an apple, and wow are you hungry. You didn’t realize just how hungry right until this moment, with fresh food right in front of you. You decide to start with the apple, it’s red and juicy, and undoubtedly delicious.

A hand slaps the apple right out of your hand before you’ve even taken a bite.

“What the fuck?” you snarl, turning on the person who literally smacked your food out of your hands (because yes, the guacamole went flying too, and ended up splattered spectacularly across the floor).

“Weren’t you paying attention yesterday?” the guy yells. “We have to ration! You can’t just get whatever you want!”

“Actually, I was paying attention, asshole,” you snarl back, pushing the guy back with a hard shove to the chest. “I haven’t had anything to eat, and it’s not like I was taking a dozen sandwiches or anything. I was just hungry, you jackass!”

Of course, your argument has devolved into a shouting match and drawn in every single person in the store, who now a.) think you’re a food thief, and b.) are pissed at you and food slapper guy for wasting perfectly good food. And you’re sent off without food (again!). Your only consolation is that the jerk also gets to go hungry (it’s a cold comfort- this was really, really not your fault).

That night you go to bed still furious. The red haze muffling the hunger, the fear, the thoughts of _oh gods, what if it comes back tonight? Am I going to be next?_ And you quickly fall into a deep, but troubled sleep.

***

You’re standing in line at a store, a bag full of apples in your arms. The line is so long, and you are so far back that you can barely see the checkout. You shift from foot to foot, impatient. You wish they would hurry up so you could eat your apples. You’ve been craving them all day.

You glance down at the bag. It would be so tempting to just eat one here. It’s not like you aren’t planning on buying them anyway.

You bite your lip, glance around, then you open the knot in the bag, reach in, and grab one. You’re just thinking about eating it when you look up and meet the disapproving gaze of a woman. You feel the blush light up across your cheeks and put the apple back, shamefaced. The woman turns away, her nose in the air, radiating disapproval.

You tie the bag back up and go back to shifting on your feet. Impatient, and by now – bored. You look around at the displays of warm chicken, and candy, and magazines, trying to read them, but they’re too far away. You study a nearby sweater. _Gods it’s awful. Who even uses that font, and why is it so furry?_

A flicker of movement catches your eye, and you turn to the heavily pregnant woman in front of you with her nose ( **still** ) in the air. She catches you looking at her and sniffs indignantly, purposefully looking away. You’re about to do the same when you see what first caught your eye, and you can’t help but stand there and stare in horror. The woman’s stomach is moving. There, again! You see a shape pressing out from inside her abdomen, extending her skin in an unmistakable hand shape. You gulp and try to force your eyes away. It doesn’t work.

 _This is normal_ , you tell yourself. _It happens_.

The hand presses again, followed by another. Then you see a foot kick out again, and again, and again. The last kick goes so far out that you’re almost convinced that the kid is trying to karate their way to freedom. As you watch, this continues with no signs of slowing. Hands and feet, skin extending, distorting, rippling, the movement like waves curling around a sandy shore: constant, relentless, unending, forever changing the boundary of land and sea before receding and repeating. It’s mesmerizing, and horrifying.

The woman finally has enough of you staring, and turns to you full on, glaring. Her stomach still rippling.

“What?” she snaps.

“Um. Ah. Ah,” you say, rather eloquently. Finally you snap your brain out of its loop, still glancing down occasionally. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

She glances down, then back up at you, her face twisted with disgust. “No, of course not. Now will you stop?”

You nod, and she starts to turn away again.

“When are you due?” you ask, now genuinely curious how far along you have to be before your unborn child starts trying to visibly claw their way to freedom (and you also vaguely remember that that is what one traditionally asks a pregnant woman)… You really don’t want to interact with this woman any further but at this point you really can’t help yourself.

“I’m not.” She glares.

“But…” you want to point it out, clarify what is clearly a miscommunication, but she’s still glaring rather nastily at you, and it’s probably not worth it.

You expect her to turn away again, but she doesn’t. Instead she continues to watch you, her glare turning more probing, less ‘vicious disembowelment’ and more ‘specimen to be studied’.

“You don’t belong here,” she says, turning away again. “You should leave.”

“Ah, but my apples…” you start, looking down. Your eyes go wide and you drop the bag, the apples spilling out and rolling across the floor, covered in festering black rot.

“Now look what you did.”

***

You wake up with a lingering sweetness on your breath, and smack your lips, wondering if you did get to eat that apple after all. Or maybe it was from your dream. You do vaguely recall apples being involved.

You drag yourself out of bed, determined to get food before someone can stop you. When you reach the produce, you realize that you’re probably going to have to wait a bit longer for that food- every single item is covered in mold, black and white and fuzzy, and in some of the softer items you can see shapes wriggling beneath the surface… you quickly look away.

***

The day starts with another debacle: another headcount that reveals yet another missing person. (It’s too bad it’s not that food wasting, self-righteous prick). This time it’s a man, one who mostly everyone had already concluded was an addict. They reach the general consensus that he probably ran outside in his addled state. They don’t think anything of it. You know better. You don’t tell them though – it’s not like they’ll listen to you; it’s not like you trust them; it’s not like you’re **sure**.

***

You briefly wonder how you’d go about eating frozen fishsticks when you don’t have anything to heat them with. But before you can pull them out and suggest looking for a microwave or lighter or something, a nervous, nerdy looking fellow points out that none of the packaged foods have gone bad. And while everyone divvies up the packaged food (cereals, granola bars, chips, and cookies, mostly), you spot the blond girl you saw crying yesterday. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you decide to ask her about her friend.

“It was- she was-” she starts to sob. “I didn’t tell anyone- I didn’t want anyone to know!”

“Know what?” you ask.

She furiously wipes at her tears, her grief turning into fury. “She had to take medication okay. But it was **under control**. She hasn’t tried to… not in a long time, and she wouldn’t okay?” She sighs and looks up at you, staring you dead in the eye. “She wouldn’t kill herself.”

There really isn’t anything you can say to that, and you leave her alone, wondering if the disappearances really were unrelated, or perhaps the thing outside has a way of getting into people’s heads, luring them to their deaths… You think on the first night and shudder, wondering just how close you came to running off in the night.

***

The lake is frozen beneath and you must step carefully – you don’t want to fall through the ice. But still, it’ll be worth it. You tell yourself that as you trudge forward, heading towards the fisherman sitting beside a large hole bored into the lake, his fishing rod already in hand.

“Hey!” you call. “How’s the fishing?”

“Better before you showed up and scared everything away,” he grumbles.

“Oh, sorry.”

He shrugs. “Pull up a rod and have a seat.”

He motions at the ground beside him, and you do as he says. But as you ready yourself to send a line into the water, you abruptly realize that you don’t have bait.

“I don’t have bait,” you tell the fisherman, hoping he can lend you some.

“You don’t,” he agrees, seeming to entirely miss your request (or ignore it). “You probably should have brought some.”

“…Can I borrow some of yours?”

“What makes you think I have any?”

“You’re the fisherman here.”

“So I am.”

“Why would you go fishing without any bait?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?” he says, tilting up his wide hat and looking you straight in the eye.

You stare into his dark, weathered face. “Maybe there aren’t any fish in the lake?” you suggest.

He blinks, almost surprised, and then bursts out laughing.

“Oh no, there are definitely fish in the lake,” he finally manages to reply.

“Then why wouldn’t you bring bait?” you ask.

He abruptly stops chuckling and gives you a sharp and serious look. “Because I don’t need any.”

***

You wake to shouting, again. There’s a bedraggled, bearded man standing in front of what can only be described as a mob, yelling something incoherent.

You look around for Leadership Lady, hoping that she can stop this growing problem before it gets out of hand, only to realize that she’s missing.

You look outside and notice with some alarm that **_the sky isn’t right_**. Blackness is pressing in on the windows in thick tendrils like crawling rot. The atmosphere has moved from ‘threatening rain’ to ‘definitely fog’, and the uncanny grey swirls and _writhes_ in ways that make your stomach turn.

“We can’t last like this forever! We’ll starve!” the man shouts, gesturing around wildly.

“If it wants us, I say let it take us!” he steps down from the stool he was using as a stage, grabs it by its legs, and swings it full force at the window behind him.

“Shi-it,” you gasp, already backing away.

There is a sharp crack, followed by the edged crackling sound of quickly failing glass, and then a sudden, deafening whoosh accompanying the sound of shattering. Air rushes in, fog and darkness follow.

You hear screaming even as you duck underneath a display table, knowing, viscerally, that you can’t outrun IT and hoping, maybe, you can hide from IT for _long enough_. You see passing feet abruptly pulled upward, still kicking. You see a runner tripped, falling to the floor with a sickening thud, before being dragged away. You see a man stop and turn, transfixed, staring at something beyond your field of vision, his expression like awe and terror before he too is violently yanked forward and then he is just **gone**. And there, 15 feet away from you, a store employee, still in their work khakis, is fumbling with a key for the emergency exit. He manages to get it open and runs through, the door slowly. swinging. shut. behind him.

Shit.

You know, in the most primal part of your brain, that this may be your only chance. There is no room for fear, even though there is so very much of that in the air around you, coursing through your veins. You push it aside and RUN.

You nearly crack your head on the table as you bolt from your hiding place, but you just manage to avoid it. And then you’re out in the open. And the ground is slick with blood. And people are still disappearing. Still screaming. And you ignore it all with single-minded determination and sprint full out towards the emergency exit.

You feel something brush your leg as you run… but no, no time for that. Mustn’t think about that. Have to run. And you do. You run so hard, so fast, and so desperately that you slam into the wall beside the exit and have the wind knocked out of you. Between gasps of air, you manage to slide your hand into the space between the door and its frame just before it closes. And then, without hesitation, thought, or remorse, you pull the door open and plunge into the mists.

***

You’re standing in front of your hotel… you don’t know how you got here, exactly. In fact, you really should not be here at all. You’re certain that the grocery store was quite a walk from the hotel. And yet, here you are.

You look around, and then turn around. Wasn’t there just fog outside?

The grocery store is not behind you. You are standing in empty road. Cars parked neatly along the sidewalk. Exactly as you remember it. You turn to the side and see the same traffic jam, but different. The cars are no longer in orderly rows- some have clearly pulled off onto the side of the road, others seem to have careened off course, and there were clearly a few accidents. More eerie than the disorder is the lack of light. Not one single car seems to be on. And you can make out the silhouettes of people in the cars, but they are oddly still and unmoving.

You turn back towards the hotel and walk inside. Or you try to anyway, but the doors don’t slide open like they should and you have to pry your hand between them and force them apart.

You remember the hotel feeling warm and safe; it doesn’t feel that way now.

The electricity is off, and the only light comes from the dirty windows. As you walk forward, you notice the large, brown stain brushed diagonally along the wall on your left, and you don’t even dare check on the breakfast area to your right. Instead you determinedly face forward, towards the desk, and start as you come face to face with the receptionist.

There is no warm greeting, no practiced smile. She doesn’t acknowledge you. She just continues to stare, unblinkingly, ahead. Her face is disturbingly blank, like she’s been emptied, hollowed out; like there’s nothing left inside of her. A scrape vivid across her chin. If you couldn’t see the rise and fall of her chest, you’d think she was dead.

You walk past her, unable to help the sidelong glances in her direction, expecting her to **do something, anything**. She doesn’t. She just continues to stare ahead, breathing.

You walk up the stairs to the second floor. You can’t help but walk softly, carefully, as though any sound you make could give you away, get you killed. You don’t know why you want to go to your room. You can’t imagine it’s any safer than anywhere else, because clearly nowhere is safe, and you can’t imagine that you’ll find anything there that’ll help you. But the fact remains that it **feels** safe, and you want that more than anything.

When you get to the second floor, you are met with flickering, uncertain lights and the loud **loud** whirring of a vacuum cleaner. You step around cables hanging down from the ceiling, cluttering the already tight corridor.

Down the hall, standing at the intersection where two hallways meet, is the janitor, dutifully vacuuming, each movement broad and certain, and for a moment you think he might be okay, not **empty** like the woman downstairs. As you walk closer, you notice that he is going over the same piece of carpet, over, and over, and over again; so much so that the carpet is obviously worn. And his movements, while long and broad, are listless and jerky. And his face- His face… is frozen in a rictus of horror, like he has seen things no one ever should.

“Hello…” you call out to him, between shaky pants of breath, clinging to the faint hope that he’ll snap out of it and be okay (that you won’t be alone). “It’s coming,” you say halfheartedly, trying to warn him.

At this, he stops, turns, and looks you in the eye. “I know. You can’t outrun it. Why even try?” and then he returns to vacuuming, his hands shakier than before.

That is when you realize that the wall of darkness behind him should be a hallway. That even with flickering, uncertain light, there should be a gradient from visible hallway to impenetrable black, not this sharp delineation between light and dark.

This seems familiar, like a memory, like you’ve seen this before- but you haven’t. You know it. You can’t bear to look into the darkness. You turn away and make to run—

***

You blink, confused. What were you doing again? The bright, fluorescent light reflecting off the meticulously polished white tile is blinding and you have to close your eyes or risk a headache.

You rub your forehead, trying to remember—

When you open your eyes again, you see the shopping basket at your feet, filled with vegetables and fish. Oh right, you were getting your groceries.

You pick up your basket and head over to the checkout, nearly running into a women stepping out from behind a rack of clothing. You try to apologize, but she doesn’t even seem to notice you, and just continues on her way. As she leaves, your eyes are drawn to her beautiful dress- skintight grey, colorblocked with brilliant fuchsia. Even from a distance you can tell that the fabric is high quality and that the garment itself was designed to flatter a real body in a way that no cheap dress ever is. And you are keenly aware that you could never own such an undoubtedly expensive piece of clothing.

You look away from the woman and find yourself staring at a mannequin wearing the exact same dress. In fact, the entirety of the clothing department seems to be filled with clothes of the same quality. Beautiful dresses, shirts, pants, suits, and shoes for every occasion. Far beyond your price range.

You’re still drawn to them. A small voice in the back of your head reasons that they can’t be **that** expensive if they’re being sold in a department store that you’re buying your groceries in.

You place your basket on the floor and reach forward hesitantly, turning over a price tag. Your stomach drops as you see too many numbers to ever be in your budget. You reach for another one, and then another, your hands shaking. They’re all the same. You could never afford them.

You feel eyes on you and see two women clearly talking about you, with their vicious smiles hidden behind politely raised hands that do nothing to hide their derisive eyes and sharp, mocking laughs.

 _You don’t belong here_. The feeling is biting and obvious. You reach down and pick up your groceries, intent on paying for them and leaving as quickly as possible. Only to find that your basket is empty.

***

You blink, paused mid-step. You don’t know what that was- a vision, a message, perhaps a byproduct of insanity? But it still leaves you feeling empty and disappointed.

Then the light flickers above you and you remember where you are, and you determinedly **do no look back** , even when your instincts scream that IT **is right behind you** and **you are going to die-RUN!** And you do run. Springing towards your room, fumbling for the keycard still miraculously in your pocket (and you have never loved your cargo pants so much), but the door still beeps and opens, and you still make it inside (somehow).

You’re breathing hard by the time you get into your room, panting for breath as you slide the deadbolt into place with badly shaking hands.

You freeze as you hear something move in the hallway you, and you hold your breath. You see a shadow blocking out the light under your door. It moves across it, slowly, so slowly you think you might pass out from the lack of breathing. You see the shadow pass, and determinedly hold your breath until finally, ages later, you feel like you can breath again. You take a moment to lean against the door and catch your breath as you survey your room – it’s trashed. It seems like someone went through every item that you own and threw them around without a single care.

You slump to the floor, and now that you finally feel the tiniest bit safe, you can stop and think. It’s been four days since this thing started, though it feels like a small eternity, but by now someone has to have noticed an entire town losing their minds. Which reminds you- didn’t you have a phone? Why didn’t you use it to call for help? You check your pockets, but it’s gone. _Right, that’s why_. You don’t remember how you lost it, or when, or even when you first realized it was gone (or how you forgot about it). But the fact remains that it’s AWOL and you’re still shit outta luck.

You remember the hotel’s phone, and you even manage to check it, but the line is dead.

You look around, desperate for some idea of how to get out of this, or even what to do next. You can’t go back into the hallway, you are absolutely, 100% sure that if you do, IT will be there waiting. And you are really, seriously tired, and grungy beyond all comprehension. Too tired to think beyond the feeling of dirt and grit lying across your skin. You settle on the bathroom.

You cautiously check the room before you flip the switch, and after a moment, the light splutters to life. When you see yourself in the mirror, you really wish it hadn’t.

You’re gaunt in a way that you’ve never seen before: cheeks sunken in, collarbone sharp and protruding, and ribs that you can count from beneath your shirt. It looks like you’ve gone weeks, or months, without enough to eat. But even realizing this, your stomach doesn’t complain, and no matter how many times you check, you still don’t feel hungry.

You stagger over to the mirror, staring into the bruises beneath your eyes and the blood caking your arm, your pants, your chin. You look up and meet the gaze of your reflection in the mirror, and you really wish you hadn’t. Your eyes are different than you remember them, darker, and for a moment you swear you see something in them… You hastily look away.

You very suddenly want to be anywhere except there, in that room, with only your reflection and that crappy, fake lighting.

It’s back in the main area of your hotel room, sitting on your bare bed, that you get an idea. Outside is clear and free of fog, or that weird unnatural darkness you associate with IT. So if you can just get outside without attracting IT’s attention and make your way out of town, then maybe you stand a chance of getting out of this alive.

The biggest problem with your plan is the fact that you’re trapped inside a room on the second floor of a building, and you don’t feel like trying to walk on a broken leg today. But you’ve seen enough movies that you have an idea how to get around your problem.

You look down at your bed and realize that you’re sitting on he bed covering because your bedding is missing. You curse softly.

An idea strikes you, and you go over to the window. It looks like someone had the same idea as you- your sheets and comforter are twisted and tied into a makeshift rope, hanging from the balcony’s railing and trailing down the side of the building. It won’t get you all the way to the ground, but you reckon you’ll be close enough to avoid seriously hurting yourself.

***

You walk up the hill, huddled inside a jacket, weaving in-between the cars and trying not to look inside. (It doesn’t work, you can’t help but look; can’t help but see the corpses, sprawled in limp heaps, like marionettes who’ve had their strings cut).

You make it to the top of the hill.

There is a line of police cars blocking the road, and a whole troop of police officers, kneeling behind the cover of their car doors. Their guns pointed at you, and their faces staring at you in obvious fear.

You know you look pretty bad, but you don’t think you look **that** bad.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” one of the officers demands.

And so you do. Because what else can you do? If you go back, you’ll have to face IT, and you’ll die. If you go forward, you’ll be shot, and you’ll die. Maybe standing between a rock and a hard place is the safest place to be right now. At least it’s the only place to be that won’t get you immediately killed. So there’s that.

….

…….

The thought snags in your mind… There’s something about it. Something important. Something familiar.

… And then **you remember**.

You remember leaving the hotel the first time. Being knocked to the ground by the man. Him yelling at you. The stinging cut in your arm. The creeping dark in his eyes.

You remember being picked up off the ground and held between two men with iron grips on your arms. Being dragged inside the hotel. The receptionist trying to placate the mob streaming inside, trying to get them to let you go. Someone hitting her across the chin and her sprawling on the floor, curled in on herself and sobbing.

You remember the other guests streaming into the lobby, drawn by the commotion, curious.

You remember pandemonium. A fight. Sudden freedom. Crawling along the floor, inching towards the stairs.

You remember the janitor, vacuuming the hallway. Yelling at him to run. Nearly falling into your room and slamming the door behind you.

You remember the mirror. The long gash on your arm, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood.

_“Well that doesn’t look good,” you mutter, using soap and water and an old bottle of hand sanitizer to clean the wound._

_Your reflection stares back at you._

_“It’s pointless,” your reflection says._

_You jump back, staring at your own face, which somehow looks nothing like your face at all._

_In the mirror, your reflection is **wrong**. The wound seeps black, dark veins crawling upward towards dark, dark eyes that are **not yours**._

_“It’s already infected,” your reflection points out._

_You glance down and see the scratch oozing puss, dripping onto the tile beneath you._

_Your reflection steps forward and places their hand against the mirror. “You can’t escape IT. Why even try?”_

You remember running into your hotel room, desperately searching for something, anything, that can help.

You remember realizing that your phone is missing. Grabbing your bedding and desperately twisting and knotting it, throwing open your window, tying it to the railing of your tiny balcony, climbing down and sprinting away from the mob.

You remember getting to the grocery store. Shouting about IT, trying to warn others, being called crazy and summarily dismissed.

You remember the man being thrown against the windows, again and again, until he stopped screaming and all that was left was the blood.

You remember the panic and the desperation and the fights.

You remember finding the supply closet with the broken window. Fog leaking in, swirling in the light of an incandescent bulb.

You remember huddling underneath your blanket, listening to the *click click click* getting closer. Except in your memory, it doesn’t go away.

You remember something grabbing you by the throat, _you can’t even scream_ , dragging you outside, kicking and thrashing every step of the way.

You remember **IT**.

You remember waking up, day after day, with the bone deep knowledge of what you must do to appease IT. One day you place squid inside the supply closet, the next a pickle, then one apple, then a bag.

You remember having to steal the food out from under the noses of everyone else in the store. Finally being caught.

_“It hungers, and we must appease it!”_

You remember being watched every second of every day. Of being unable to **_appease IT_**. Of the disappearances starting. Of you being allowed to **_appease IT_**. Days turning into weeks.

You remember waking up one morning and not knowing what to do. No direction, no certainty, lost. The deep, chilling terror that accompanied this realization. Not daring to tell the others that you can no longer appease IT. Certainly they will throw you outside now, in the vain hope that that will appease IT.

You remember finding the girl with the knife in her hand, bleeding out in the corner of the store. Dragging her to the supply closet with the broken window and leaving her inside.

 _The next day you go to the man talking nonsense, his forehead sweating and his body shaking from withdrawals. You sit down and talk to him, convince him that his delusions are real and the only way to escape them is to hide from them in the supply closet_ …

You remember The Food Waster, The Snitch, the man who slapped food out of your hands and never trusted you.

You remember using the knife you took from the girl and killing him in cold blood.

Then you remember the woman with dark skin and grey hair, built like an army tank. The Leader. Finding you mopping up the trail of blood with an old rag.

You remember her opening the supply closet and gagging at what she sees inside. Grabbing you and twisting your arm. The injured one.

You remember snarling like a wild thing, the short fight that followed. Ending with a hard shove that pushes her into the closet, and the screams that come after.

You remember going into the bathroom and unwrapping the bandages around your arm with shaking hands. Oozing black. Crawling up your veins.

You remember scratching at your arm. The certainty that **_something is inside you_**. Scratching at your stomach, clawing, trying to **get. it. out**! Bleeding black, twisting and wrong.

You remember waking up to the riot.

You remember the hotel, and unnatural black of the hallway. Seeing a something in the blackness, shaped like a person, but **not**.

You remember darkness surging forward, engulfing the janitor.

You remember running, but not how you could possibly have escaped.

And you remember the hotel mirror. The black inside of you. Inside your veins. Swimming inside your eyes, writhing underneath your skin.

You remember screaming, breaking the mirror with a fist. Shards of glass and blood that **was not black**.

And oh—that’s why they’re afraid of you. The police officers with their guns, trembling in their boots, hiding behind their cars.

You really don’t want to die.

You open your mouth to try to reason with them, to convince them you can be saved, to beg for your life, but instead what comes out is:

“It hungers. You must appease it.”

.

.

.

.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I had this unsettling dream. And I thought 'hey, why not write it down?'. I soon realized that disjointed snippets do not make for a satisfying story and expanded it until it grew a life of its own.  
> I don't know if it's any good, but I really didn't want it sitting on my computer til the end of time. So here it is.


End file.
